Why Are People Quitting Their Jobs?

Business Insider has noticed a trend: people quitting jobs without
having another lined up. A few weeks back, they decided to try to
collect some data on this trend, asking readers who had quit a job "in the past couple of years" to fill out a survey. Now, Business Insider's Alyson Shontell has posted
the results. Out of 225 people who filled out the survey, "93% quit
jobs in the past few years," and "57% quit jobs in the past two years
without another opportunity lined up." Contrary to what readers of The
New York Times might suspect,
"it's not just young people who are doing this: 54% of people ages
25-34 quit without another opportunity versus 55% people of ages
35-49."

But why are these folks quitting? Shontell reveals
that, for 65% of those who responded, "it's because they're not happy
and simply do not like their jobs." Other reasons included "needing a
change ... being bored/not challenged ... and disliking bosses." This,
of course, rasies another set of questions:

So
many people are losing or unable to find jobs; how can people who are
employed think they're anything but lucky? Is it a lack of maturity in
younger professionals, or is the pursuit of happiness a new, permanent,
trend?

There aren't clear answers to this question (and those
with even a passing familiarity with social science methods could point
out this survey probably has one heck of a non-response bias, too). Shontell, though, ends with this thoughtful offering:

People
spend years of their lives at work to improve their well-being. How
that well-being is defined seems to be shifting. After all, money
doesn't buy happiness.

You could also put it together with this number, highlighted by The Atlantic's Derek Thompson: "five out of six American workers want to leave their job next year."

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